Carlie Simmons (Book 2): In Too Deep (13 page)

Chapter 35

At dinner that night, Carlie sat across
the table from Commander Young in the officer’s mess hall as they discussed the
mission ahead amidst a surprisingly good meal of rehydrated beef stroganoff and
instant cream of broccoli soup.

“General Adams informed me earlier of
what’s at stake here and the critical intel that might be present,” said Young.
“You said that there was evidence on the freighter which indicated it may have
some connection with smugglers.”

“That’s right. There are several island
chains in the region to the south of the mainland,” Carlie said. “The one of
significance is Nuevo Gerona. Question is where on the island is the location
of the rumored bioweapons site? If we could do a flyover in the choppers or
send up a drone, that would expedite this search. I’m trusting that General Adams
will have some new satellite intel on the location.”

“We will know more in another day but
I’d say the approaching storm front is going to rule out aerial capabilities
for now. Plus our com-link is down with White Sands now, probably due to the
storm.”

“The Zodiacs are going to be our best
bet for getting in and out and will draw far less attention from those
creatures than a bird anyway,” said Shane, looking at the rest of the crew,
knowing the XO was well aware of the limits of his machinery.

“Zodiacs are doable depending on the
surf but my crew is stretched thin and will be acting as support from this end.
I just can’t spare anyone to accompany you and with the operational experience
that is needed to augment your ground element. If you get into the thick of it,
then our big guns can pound the shoreline or interior if need be.”

Carlie wasn’t sure how much the XO had
been briefed by the general and what he knew, if anything, about the Soviet items
they had found on board the freighter. She didn’t think it would bear on the
mission from his end and didn’t see the need in panicking the crew, whose
nerves were already jangled from their bloody departure in Florida.

“After you get what you came for, we
will set a course for the Florida Keys. There is a small naval support station
there that is intact and free of hostiles…as of today anyway. From there, we
will reconfigure and see what General Adams has in mind for us next.”

“How long can this vessel support its
current crew?” said Matias.

“We’ve got enough canned food, stored
water, a massive desalinator, and fuel to keep us afloat for two months if
we’re not pushing things. Losing more than a third of our crew has extended our
supplies but also will tax each of my people with the burden of additional
duties. Hopefully, there are other intact ports around the Caribbean and the
Gulf to allow for resupply but that is a big unknown.”

The commander placed his cloth napkin on
the table and stood. “I will have my comms personnel get with you on
coordinating your radio frequencies with ours and have my intel people go over
contingency plans and exfil routes that we have examined in the past during
mock scenarios for Cuba—something the navy has been doing for over forty
years.”

Chapter 36

As Agent Willis cautiously opened the
door leading out of President Huntington’s conference room, he saw two other
agents nestled outside with their MP-7 rifles aimed down the hallway.

“Is the exfil route secure?” Willis
said.

“For now, but Eliza is in the lab, behind
the air-locked doors,” said the younger agent to the right of Willis.

“Then that’s where we are going,” said
the president.

As the team of three Secret Service agents
huddled around him in a tight configuration, they glided down the cement
corridor with the rest of the advisors in tow, and General Adams at the rear, armed
with a Beretta 9mm.

They passed through two long passageways
while the lights flickered overhead and screams could be heard over the
intercoms on the wall, echoing throughout the hallways to the right and left. It
sounded like they were in a zoo at feeding time only these were feral human
growls followed by the sickening noise of crunching bone and flesh.

“Two hundred meters to the lab, sir,”
said Willis, who was in the lead. He saw four yellow-faced creatures clad in
civilian clothes rushing towards them. Willis froze in position and unleashed a
volley of rounds from his MP-7 at the first two. The creatures’ flapping mouths
emitted faint shrieks as the small-caliber rounds split open their heads. The
next two staggered around the bodies and began running. Their milky white eyes
fixated on Willis as he fired off double taps, dispatching each creature within
arm’s reach. Willis and the others continued moving through the passage until
they came to an intersection. To the right was the laboratory.  

Willis saw two parallel streaks of blood
on the floor where someone had been dragged off, and a half-chewed ear. As he
approached the white vault door of the lab, he could see Eliza and two other
technicians inside hiding in the corner by a table. Before them was a wiry Secret
Service agent who was standing with his rifle extended towards the entrance.

Willis tapped on the thick glass of the
door and motioned the other agent inside to come over. The door opened and
Willis moved up.

“We are taking POTUS to Air Force One. I
want to punch a line straight down this hallway. It’s three hundred meters to
the entrance ramp leading outside and then we just have to clear the route to
the plane. The pilots are on board and they said it’s half fueled.”

The other man nodded and waved for Eliza
and the rest to come up. Huntington pushed past the agents and reached for his
daughter, who rushed to grab his hand. “Sir, we need to go, now,” said Willis.

“For God’s sakes, can’t you people move
any faster?” warbled Phillip, who was clutching one of the agents’ jackets. “I
can’t go through this all over again.”

“We’ve got a group of hostiles at my six,”
shouted General Adams, who was at the rear.

“Let’s roll,” said Willis. “Bring any
pertinent research intel. This lab will seal shut permanently if the base
mainframe goes offline.” Eliza and Efron quickly scurried to grab two tablets and
a stack of notebooks off the front desk. Efron clutched the encrypted CIA
laptop under his arm as he rushed to the door. Willis turned from the exit and
began trotting as he and the rest of the group fled the incoming horde.

Willis could hear General Adams
discharging his Beretta followed by rounds of automatic weapons fire from the
agents at the back. As Willis passed by each hallway, he could see people
fleeing or being taken down by savage mobs of crinkly-faced mutants. The
subterranean air, which had smelled like a musty storage locker, had become
filled with the coppery odor of freshly spilled blood and the stench of
viscera. Willis jumped over the headless corpse of a nurse and then saw six
creatures dressed in flight suits clogging the hallway ahead which ended at the
entrance ramp to the airfield.

“I need another shooter up front with
me,” he yelled back but only heard the sound of gunfire followed by the rush of
footsteps. Willis turned and saw the other agents and General Adams firing into
the approaching crowd which was closing in from three passages.

“Shit, we gotta keep moving,” muttered
Willis to himself as the president, Eliza, and Efron clung to his back. Willis
turned to his front and the oncoming group and began systematically firing off
controlled bursts at the ravenous goons nearly upon him. He dropped two
instantly, then followed up with another headshot which sent the closest
creature tumbling backwards into the other, its face exploding into a cherry
mist. Willis continued firing, dropping two more, but the last one was upon him
as his weapons ran dry. He immediately lowered his MP-7s and met the incoming
creature with a fierce stomp kick to the chest, sending it toppling backwards
on the slick floor. As it sprang up, he smoothly retrieved his Sig Sauer pistol
and fired a round, striking the beast in the right temple in a shower of bone
fragments, then he lunged forward with a kick to the bottom of the chin and
unhinged the entire head.

Willis looked back and saw two agents
were dead and a pile of twenty corpses lined the hallway. Adams was staggering
forward with a bloody face, leaning over an agent’s body to retrieve a rifle.
As the general stood up, two creatures dressed in cowboy clothing leapt at him.
Willis sidestepped and dispatched one in mid-air with his pistol. The other flailing
beast was swatted away by Adams, who used his rifle to slam into its chest as
it reached for him. The ruddy-faced zombie landed on the back of Phillip and
buried its soiled teeth into the soft flesh of his neck, spraying rivulets of
blood onto the collar of his white silk shirt.

Adams slammed the butt of his rifle into
the side of the creature’s head, shattering its jaw, and then fired off three
rounds into the crumpled skull.

Willis walked up to the other agents and
could see two of them were dead. The third man, a lean agent with a finely
trimmed mustache who was on Eliza’s protection detail, was still alive and
holding his arm, which had an oozing bite mark. He looked up at Willis and then
back at the president and his daughter. “Go, I am done for,” the man said,
reaching for his rifle and putting in his last magazine. “I’ll buy you some
time.”

Willis looked down the rear hallway and
saw another group of mutants headed their way. He clenched his jaw, looking
down at the doomed agent’s wounds and then reluctantly pulled away and grabbed
the president’s arm.

“Wait, we can’t leave Phillip like
this,” said Eliza, who was staring down at the glassy eyes which reflected the
pool of bright red blood beneath his face.

“He’s already dead,” said Huntington.

As they rushed for the entrance ramp,
Willis could hear the groaning sound of approaching creatures behind them followed
by automatic weapons fire and then silence. They ran up the incline and Willis
removed the massive metal bar across the double doors, straining with the
others to yank them free. As sunlight flooded in, he could hear the reassuring
sound of the turbo engines of Air Force One and saw the plane moving into its
departure position two-hundred yards away.

As they sprinted down the blacktop
runway, Willis could see the fuel truck parked to the right with its hose
dangling on the ground. Willis dropped back and ran alongside General Adams.
“Sir, I need you to finish getting POTUS on board. I’m gonna ram that fuel
truck into the entrance doors or those things will overrun the tarmac before
the plane can lift off.”

Adams nodded and continued running with
the others as Willis veered off for the truck. He hopped inside and flipped
over the ignition then swung the steering wheel hard to the left. Accelerating,
he punched the vehicle forward at 40 mph right into the flood of creatures
pouring out of the exit tunnel.

Willis unclipped his empty rifle from
his shoulder harness and jammed it between the seat and the gas pedal. As the
engine revved up and with the truck aimed directly at the swarm of crazed
mutants, Willis dove out of the vehicle, landing on the blacktop in a partial
roll, cracking his shoulder blade on the ground. He heard the truck crunching
over bone and flesh as it tore into the crowd of reeling creatures.

As he staggered to his feet, letting his
injured arm dangle, Willis withdrew his pistol and fired off three rounds into
the rear of the truck, watching it explode like a rolling cauldron as it
slammed into the entrance.

With a mushroom cloud of flame and black
smoke incinerating most of the creatures, Willis limped for the plane, which
was wheeling slowly down the runway away from him. He fired off his last two
rounds into the head of a bounding creature dressed in tan fatigues then
reholstered his weapon. With three more mutants closing in on him, he rushed
for the plane, whose side door was still hanging open. With only twenty feet
between them, Willis approached the door, where he saw President Huntington
leaning out, waving him on. With blood dripping down his wounded arm and road
rash on his face, he forced out a final sprint and grabbed onto Huntington’s
hand as the plane gained speed.

Willis placed his leather shoes on the carpeted
steps and was pulled up by the president. As the wheels screeched along the
blacktop, Adams yanked the door closed. The flow of creatures from the entrance
was stemmed and Air Force One made its dash down the runway until it was aloft
over the white sand dunes surrounding the former desert sanctuary.

Chapter 37

As they waited for the storm to clear,
Carlie and the rest of the team spent time in the computer center next to the
chow hall, catching up on intel reports from around the world via cached
newsfeeds or intermittent HAM radio networks. Once the pathogen had raged
through the major cities, the smaller towns succumbed next. In those less
densely populated regions fortunate enough to survive minimal casualties,
people closed off the routes into their communities and established their own laws
to keep the internal social mechanisms from breaking down.

No place escaped the ravages of the
diseases and even remote settlements in the Arctic, Australia, and the Amazon
succumbed in days. In those regions where there were no more living humans, the
mutants went into a torpid state similar to an insect during a cold night.

There were reports of militant armies
forming in states like Montana and North Carolina but those were short-lived as
the mutants were too many and the internal rivalries in the groups caused them
to implode. Those that survived around the world did so by cunning, remaining
quietly in their isolated communities, and adapting their movement to the long
hours of the night. Terrifying reports came in almost daily about savage attacks
by faster, lone-wolf mutants who seemed to have superior strength and
wound-recovery capabilities. In one case in Detroit, a fast-moving mutant raged
through a bunker full of twenty-six people in minutes before being dispatched. These
creatures seemed to be able to draw the slower-moving zombies to them though it
wasn’t certain what, if any, kind of communication between the two was being
used.

Now with winter on the way in many parts
of the world, survivors would be further confined to their retreats amidst
dwindling resources and brutal temperatures.

Carlie was staring at the laptop screen
beside Shane and Matias, who were viewing their own newsfeeds. After reading an
autopsy report on a recent mutant examination from Doctor Efron from a few days
prior and seeing mention of his futile attempts at trying to decode the viral
strain, she placed her elbows on the table and rubbed her weary eyes. Carlie
tried to force out the bleak images from the past week and focus on something
normal but she couldn’t seem to extract any memories except those of close-quarter
battles or blood-soaked encounters. She found her heart racing and breath
quickening and had to force herself back to the present. She hoped to reach
White Sands again on the bridge radio but the transmission wasn’t getting
through, probably due to the spotty satellite reception.

She looked around the room at her two
teams spread out and reading their computer screens intently or trying to
catnap. With the exception of Amy and Jared, both of her groups were made up
entirely of former or current military. Shane’s former background in the navy
she knew well and Matias had been in the army like herself. He had served in
the trenches in South and Central America in the war on drugs along with doing
more than a few tours in the Middle East.

Boyd and his men were composed of army or
marine veterans, a jumbled mix of skills and headstrong men that Boyd did an
excellent job of controlling even though she despised the man’s social skills. Amy
was holding up well, Carlie thought, looking at the younger woman whose hair
was pulled back in a tight ponytail. From what Carlie had gleaned from speaking
with her, Amy had certainly seen her share of trauma working as a paramedic.
She also didn’t flinch under pressure when they were in the thick of battle
against the undead despite her lack of tactical training. The latter was
something Carlie could inculcate given enough time under her tutelage. And then
there was Jared, the wild card. Despite her conflicted feelings when she was
around him, she had to admit that his unusual skill set had already helped them
out. He had a medley of improvisational skills coupled with a cool-handed
attitude under pressure that could serve her team well—if she could continue to
rein him in as a team player.

She definitely felt like the mix of
individuals on her own small team were becoming tighter given their odd
pedigree and would merge eventually with Boyd’s men as their combined operational
tempo increased. She felt at home amongst the majority of these warriors and
understood this unique subculture that only a handful of women were ever privy
to. Her upbringing as a military brat, followed by her own stint in the army
and then working for years in the predominantly male ranks of the Secret
Service had fostered a family of its own, as it often does amongst this
brotherhood of elite fighters whose bonds are forged under extreme adversity.
In that she found solace and knew that sanity was possible as long as you had
your own kind to return to after the long, weary battles that one endured.

Carlie looked beyond her teams towards
the entrance and saw Master-At-Arms Richards making a beeline towards her.

She got up and met him halfway.
“Everything alright?”

“The commander wants to see you on the
bridge. You’re going to want to hear this local transmission we just received.”

Carlie grabbed her fleece jacket off the
back of her chair and then followed Richards out of the room. They headed up
the stairs to the command center, passing through an observation deck where the
storm continued unabated outside.